Welcome to my ramblings!

Missing England

I don’t often say that I miss good old Blighty, I mean for goodness sake I went back and lived there for four years with French Hubby and hated almost every minute. In fact I was more desperate than he was to get back to France. We only returned 3 years ago so how can I have forgotten how much I wanted to get away from there? But over the last few days my Englishness has come out in full and I’ve been missing some things from back home :

1. Hot Cross Buns
I’ve actually learned to make these but when I see the ads on UK television for 4 hotcross buns for 49p at Tesco my homemade buns just don’t cut it.

2. Cadbury’s Creme Eggs
Really really miss these. In fact I’ve asked my brother to send some over to me!!! I am a bit worried that these will become extinct though now that Cadbury has been taken over and it’s not exactly as if I can learn to make them now is it?

Cadbury Creme Egg

3. Proper Bacon
I hate the think slimy stuff that the French call bacon and I long for a decent rasher of bacon in a good sandwich (not made out of stale pain de mie – have you ever noticed that all pain de mie in France is stale?). The last time I had a decent Bacon sarnie was in St Lucia at Christmas but I had to make do with tomato ketchup as they didn’t have any brown sauce (HP is best!!).

Looking at this list there’s not a lot that I really miss and quite a lot is seasonal for Easter. I could add many items that I often crave such as Branston Pickle, chicken and mushroom pie, Bakewell Tart, M&S ready meals, Indian takeaway, Herbies Pizza although these are only occasional cravings and are often quickly satisfied when I return to Blighty as opposed to the buns, creme eggs and bacon – these are all seriously missed and I have to take measures to satisfy my craving otherwise it becomes an obsession.

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We can turn our backs on bad old blighty, but there are still some good things worth preserving…Pork pies, English Mustard, Gammon Steaks, proper English Sausages from the local butcher, English lamb, English Bacon, English cheese, Devonshire clotted cream with homemads scones and strawberry jam, Branston Pickle, Picallili, Christmas cake, mince pies and Christmas puddings …
and finally hmmm heaven… Cadbury’s chocolate creme eggs. My mouth is watering already…the government should slap a preservation order on them.

Just hope your brother remembers to wrap the eggs well when he sends them.

mmmm, all those things to miss! Thankfully we are spoiled for food in France so there’s lots of yummy things to make up for everything I miss. I missed decent French bread and proper pain au chocolats when I was living back in the UK, not to mention proper cheese and decent meals in restaurants (that didn’t cost a fortune). Maybe I will be eternally unsatisfied? I do hope my brother sends me the eggs quickly though!

I’ve just had a look and unfortunately its mighty expensive for my Creme Eggs – £28.30 for 12 Creme Eggs to be delivered to France😦 SOB😦 Does this seem expensive compared to when you used companies like this or is it the price I should be expecting to pay?

I will certainly keep this in mind for when I’m really desperate as it is very expensive! I guess I’ll just have to rely on my brother this time round…

I did not miss anything for a long time. One day we were shopping in Coln in D and they had an English shop. We purchased 2 poor quality pork pies sat outside and munched them, boy were they good.

You crave for the ordinary simple things. Now we live in Norfolk I never eat any of the things I craved for. Funny old world. I find baked beans too sweet. HP sauce is not the same now its made in Holland. I think Cadbury chocolate is poor quality to what you find in france. English biscuits. the list of incrediants is so long. Mrs n now makes her own. You cannot get better than Colmans mustard powder , made in Norfolk of course.

Piglet, if you go to the meat counter in a supermarket and ask for poitrine salé cut into thin slices like for ham, you can get a reasonable rasher of bacon.

As for Branston’s, our supermarket stocks it – Intermarche. I’m sure, being in Lyon, that there musts be shops that have a well-stocked British food section. Otherwise, we have a Mondial Market here that stocks UK stuff. There may be an international food store in Lyon too.

ohhh bacon!!! I am salvating at the very thought! I will definitely be trying this! Thankfully Lyon has lots of supermarkets so I’ll have lots of meat counters to try. Makes me want to shoot my local butcher though as I’d asked if he could get me bacon and he’d said no, there just wasn’t the demand!!!

Some of the supermarkets stock some British food but its extremely ad-hoc so whenever I see it I buy it. I recently managed to buy Birds Custard powder, stuffing, out of date biscuits which I immediately took back, polo mints and Dairy Milk chocolate. However, they stook some strange stuff like Pasta “n” Sauce, baked beans with sausages, lemon curd, mint sauce (which isn’t really strange but I can make it!) and yet they don’t sell Branston or Creme Eggs! I’ve found this to be the same in pretty much every supermarket here in Lyon. It was good in the days of M&S as I could get everything but they’re long gone!

I’ve found shops that sell some Amercian foods but all the ones that used to sell British food here are closed. I’ve noticed that in the touristy areas the shops are better stocked so maybe there’s either not enough expats or tourists here? I haven’t heard of Mondial Market so I’ll look that one up! Thanks for the tip!

I only lived in the UK for five and a half months back when I was in high school and *I* freakin’ miss things there! My favorite was the baked bean sandwiches. I don’t even remember what y’all call them, but my host family had a “sandwich pocket” iron, and my host brother would stuff two slices of white bread with baked beans and toast it; OMG, that was good.

I missed Cadbury Crunchies, too. They weren’t to be found in the US, but I’ve seen them in France. I have not been able to eat any, though.😦

You are so right about the pain de mie. Well, except for one kind I have found in Leader Price which is actually *soft* and not dry, if you eat it straight away. Do you have a Leader Price in your neck of the woods?

What’s been weird about my food intolerances has been missing stuff like this, but then realizing that even if I go back to the US, I still can’t eat it. It’s like I am missing it *forever* and that is hard. Taco Bell and/or really great Mexican food is one of those things (not that Taco Bell is *great* Mexican food, lol)! It’s something that cannot be found easily here. Even if I could, though, I could still not eat it these days, and that is difficult.

I hope that someone will mail you some creme eggs, chica! Those really are very good.🙂

Hi Karin,
I’m still waiting for the Creme Eggs but Hubby bought me some frozen ice cream eggs from Picard today… they were YUMMY!!!

Will have to try Leader Price for Pain de Mie. How can the French be so renowned for their bread and yet have such c**p pain de mie? berk! I’ve started making my own bread when I can be bothered (its usually not very good though!).

I will certainly let you know next time I’m in Paris….!!!! WHSmith – —- WATCH OUT! LOL🙂

The two things I miss are Indian takeaway (and the occasional Chinese) and a local pub (the bar is not quite the same somehow). Oh, and fish and chips! But homemade loup de mer in beer batter is good. Herta’s filet de bacon fumé works well for me as a substitute, baked beans are plentiful, and I find cheddar too acid now – I’d rather have comté.
The ready meals leave a lot to be desired here too, but we mostly cook from scratch anyway. Seafood is a bit of a problem as my OH has an allergy (and I just don’t like it) but nearly everything has some sort of seafood, or prepared in the same factory as.
Bread! Some nice granary bread that’s made in a size that makes sandwiches.
Decent beef!! Do they export all the decent meat or am I just shopping in the wrong place. I just don’t buy beef anymore, only veal – even cooking it sloooowly for several weeks, it’s still tough as old boots, though the hunk of filet of limousin we bought for our wedding was great, just cost several arms and legs.
Cost! Food’s expensive here.
Why can’t you get the old Mars bars here? They’re too sweet for me but the OH loves them.
On behalf of my mother – hot cross buns and crumpets, though I have found somewhere that imports crumpets.
OK that makes about 7 or 8 things now🙂
Oh, and as my OH is antipodean, proper barbie charcoal and custom-made chicken snaggers.
On the whole, I’d rather miss those things and be here🙂

hey there Gillpj. I hope you’re doing well.
I’ve started cooking Indian, I can get most ingredients in chinatown here so I’m quite lucky. Obviously it is not quite the same standing over the stove for hours than calling up takeaway but at least its possible🙂
I miss Cheddar on baked potatoes. I love Comté and Abondance (in fact I lurve all French cheese) but I do like Cheddar on potatoes, it just melts in a different way. But it has to be good quality cheddar. I managed to find some in Auchan but it was all crumbly so not brilliant and I was quite embarrassed by it actually! All well, French cheese is great so no complaining really.
I gave up on ready meals when I moved to France. I was 16 and didn’t know how to cook but I had to learn as the ready meals were so limited and so expensive!! Made me learn the hard way but I don’t regret it.
I do agree that I’ve rather miss all those things and be here, I’d have to be mad to think otherwise LOL🙂 Thankfully I only get pangs from time to time but Easter is definitely the worse for me. I should be thrilled at all the fab French chocolate available but no… I guess I’m spoiled here! What on earth would the French think if they could see us all missing “English” food? I dread to think!

For Indian stuff (pity I don’t get commission!), this is a good online shop spicesofindia.co.uk
The postage is cheap, fast delivery, and some great stuff like mango and ginger chutney, and a dhansak with the unfortunate name of Gits – it’s supposed to be a ready meal but I use it like a cook-in sauce.

thanks for the link Karin, I think I’m going to try and make these this weekend. The recipe seems quite complicated though and I’m not sure that this will be within my capabilities but I will certainly have a go! Anything for a Creme Egg!

Thanks for stopping by. I shouldn’t touch them either, especially as all of my diet plans have failed miserably and the sun is now shining and I’m surrounded by skinny French girls! Anyhow, I now have 5 more creme eggs left to eat, I’m limiting myself to one a day, although I could gobble them all up in 1 day!